A key requirement for effectively managing software development and similar projects is the ability to track effort level information (i.e. how many hours were spent on performing the activity) for a particular task or activity. This information is critical in assessing whether a project is on schedule and is often used to determine the cost and/or billing of a particular project.
Existing systems of tracking effort level require the user to first check in their artifacts in various systems such as the source control management (SCM) system and then go to a separate time tracking system and enter their effort level information for the particular task. The problem with this set up is that people often forget to update the time tracking system after “checking in” their artifacts. Also, since one may update the time tracking system sometime after the actual completion of work, it is likely that it will have less accuracy than information which is input at the time the change is made.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.